Mughal Empire

Persian: Solt.anat Mog.uli Hend;
Urdu: Mug.ali-h Sult.anat; , was an imperial power which ruled
most of the Indian subcontinent from the early 16th to the mid-19th
centuries[1]. At the height of its power, around 1700, it controlled
most of the subcontinent and parts of what is now Afghanistan. Its
population at that time has been estimated as between 110 and 130
million, over a territory of over 4 million km² (1.5 million mi²).[2]
Following 1725 it declined rapidly. Its decline has been variously
explained as caused by wars of succession, agrarian crises fuelling
local revolts, the growth of religious intolerance and British
colonialism. The last Emperor, Bahadur Shah II, whose rule was
restricted to the city of Delhi, was imprisoned and exiled by the
British after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

The classic period of the Empire
starts with the accession of Akbar the Great in 1556 and ends with the
death of Aurangzeb in 1707, although the Empire continued for another
150 years. During this period, the Empire was marked by a highly
centralized administration connecting the different regions of India.
All the significant monuments of the Mughals, their most visible legacy,
date to this period.

Early history

Mughal is the Persian word for Mongol
and was generally used to refer to the Central Asians who claimed
descent from the Mongol warriors of Genghis
Khan. The foundation for Mughal empire was established around 1504
by the Timurid
prince Babur,
a descendant of Genghis
Khan and Timur,
when he took control of Kabul
and eastern regions of Khorasan controlling the fertile Sindh
region and the lower valley of the Indus
River.[3]

n 1526,
Babur defeated the last of the Delhi Sultans, Ibrahim
Shah Lodi, at the First
Battle of Panipat. To secure his newly founded kingdom, Babur then
had to face the Rajput
confederacy under the leadership of Rana
Sanga of Chittor,
at the battle
of Khanwa. These early military successes of the Mughals in India,
achieved by an army much smaller than its opponents, have been
attributed to their cohesion, mobility, horse-mounted archers, and use
of artillery.[4]

Babur's son Humayun
succeeded him in 1530
but suffered major reversals at the hands of the PashtunSher
Shah Suri and effectively lost most of the fledgling empire before it could
grow beyond a minor regional state. From 1540
onwards Humayun became a ruler in exile, reaching the Court of Safavid
ruler in 1542 while
his forces still controlled some fortresses and small regions. But when the
Afghans fell into disarray with the death of Sher Shah Suri, Humayun returned
with a mixed army, raised more troops and managed to reconquer Delhi in 1555.

His son Akbar
was an infant when Humayun decided to cross the rough terrain of Makran
with his wife, and so was left behind to keep him from the rigours of the long
journey. Since he did not go to Persia with his parents, he was eventually
transported from the Rajput
fortress of Umarkot in Sind
where he was born to be raised for a time by his uncle Askari in the rugged
country of Afghanistan. There he became an excellent outdoors man, horseman,
hunter and learned the arts of the warrior.

Within a few months after the resurgent Humayun conquered the central plateau
around Delhi, he was killed in an accident, leaving an unsettled realm still
involved in war. Akbar (1556 to 1605)
succeeded his father on 14
February 1556, while in the midst of a war against Sikandar
Shah Suri for the reclamation of the Mughal throne. Thus, he was thrust onto
the throne and soon recorded his first victory at the age of 13 or 14, and the
rump remnant began to grow, then it grew considerably, so that he became called
Akbar, as he was a wise ruler, set fair but steep taxes, he investigated the
production in a certain area and the inhabitants were taxed accordingly 1/3 of
the agricultural produce. He also set up an efficient bureaucracy and was
tolerant of religious differences which softened the resistance by the
conquered.

Jahangir,
the son of Mughal Emperor Akbar and Rajput
princess Mariam-uz-Zamani,
ruled the empire from 1605–1627.
In October 1627, Shah
Jahan, the son of Mughal Emperor Jahangir and Rajput princess
Manmati, succeeded to the throne, where he inherited a vast and rich empire
in India; and at
mid-century this was perhaps the greatest empire in the world. Shah Jahan
commissioned the famous Taj
Mahal (1630–1653)
in Agra as a tomb
for his wife Mumtaz
Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child. By 1700 the empire reached
its peak with major parts of present day India, except for the North eastern
states, the Sikh
lands in Punjab, the lands of the Marathas,
areas in the south and most of Afganistan under its domain, under the leadership
of Aurangzeb
Alamgir. Aurangzeb was the last of what are now referred to as the Great
Mughal kings.

Religion

After the invasion
of Persia by the Mongol
Empire, a regional Turko-Persio-Mongol dynasty formed. Just as eastern
Mongol dynasties inter-married with locals and adopted the local religion of Buddhism
and the Chinese
culture, this group adopted the local religion of Islam
and the Persian
culture. The first Mughal King, Babur, established the Mughal dynasty in
regions spanning parts of present-day Pakistan
and India. Upon
invading this region, the Mughals inter-married with local royalty once again,
creating a dynasty of combined Turko-Persian,
and Mongol
background. King Babur did this to create peace among the different religions in
the region. Despite preaching Islamic values himself, Babur focused on setting a
good example for the Mughal Dynasty by emphasizing religious tolerance.

The language of the court was Persian.
The language spoken was Urdūn,
which today has advanced into Urdu.
Urdūn originated from Persio-Arabic formation, and took on various
characteristics of Persian, Chagatai,
and Arabic.
Today, Urdu is the National Language of Pakistan and is spoken by a small
percentage of Indian Muslims.

The dynasty remained unstable until the reign of Akbar,
who was of liberal disposition and intimately acquainted, since birth, with the
mores and traditions of Islam in the Indian sub-continent. Under Akbar's rule,
the court abolished the jizya
(minor tax on non-Muslims comparable with zakat
for Muslims) and abandoned use of the muslim lunar
calendar in favour of a solar
calendar . One of Akbar's most unusual ideas regarding religion was Din-i-Ilahi
(Faith of God), which was an eclectic mix of Islam,
Zoroastrianism,
Jainism and Christianity.
It was proclaimed the state religion until his death. These actions however met
with stiff opposition from the muslim clergy, especially the Sufi
Shaykh Alf Sani Ahmad
Sirhindi. Akbar is remembered as tolerant, at least by the standards of the
day: only one major massacre was recorded during his long reign (1556–1605),
when he ordered most of the captured inhabitants of a fort be slain on February
24, 1568, after
the battle for Chitor. Akbar's acceptance of other religions and toleration of
their public worship, his abolition of poll-tax on non-Muslims, and his interest
in other faiths show an attitude of considerable religious tolerance, which, in
the minds of his orthodox Muslim opponents, was tantamount to apostasy.
He made the formal declaration of his own infallibility in all matters of
religious doctrine, promulgated a new creed, and adopted Hindu and Zoroastrian
festivals and practices.

It is important to remember that the Mughals, while originally Sunnis from
Afghanistan, converted to Shia as a pre-condition for the help extended by the
Persian Emperor to Humayun to regain his Kingdom lost to Sher Shah. See Humayun
Refuge in Persia. The Shah Tahmasp, unlike Humayun's own family, actually
welcomed the Mughal, and treated him as an emperor of equal stature. Infact
Humayun did not even meet the Shah until July, some six months after his arrival
in Persia. After a lengthy journey from Herat
the two met in Qazvin
where a large feast and parties were held for the event. The meeting of the two
monarchs is depicted in a famous wall-painting in the Chehel
Sotoun (Forty Columns) palace in Esfahan.
It is here that the Shah urged that Humayun convert from Sunni to Shia Islam,
hinting that this would be the price of his support, and eventually and
reluctantly Humayun did so, much to the disapproval of his biographer Jauhar.
With this outward acceptance of Shi'ism the Shah was prepared to offer Humayun
more substantial support. When Humayun's brother, Kamran, offered to cede
Kandahar to the Persians in exchange for Humayun, dead or alive, the Shah
refused. Instead the Shah threw a party for Humayun, with three hundred tents,
an imperial Persian carpet, 12 musical bands and "meat of all kinds".
Here the Shah announced that all this, and 12,000 choice cavalry were his to
lead an attack on his brother Kamran. All that Shah asked for was that, if
Humayun's forces were victorious, Kandahar would be his.

The succeeding Emperor, Akbar kept true to his father's converted faith and
indeed it is during his time that observance of Shia festivals took a regular
place in the state calendar. The emperor Jahangir was also a religious moderate.
His mother being Hindu and his father setting up an independent
faith-of-the-court ('Din-i-Illahi') and the influence of his two Hindu queens
(the Maharani Maanbai and Maharani Jagat)kept religious moderation as a
center-piece of state policy which was extended under the emperor Khusrau.
Religious orthodoxy would only play an important role during the reign of
Aurangzeb Ālamgīr, a devout Muslim. Aurangzeb considered himself Sunni and
state persecution of Shias as well as non-Muslims reached a zenith under his
reign. The religious tyranny unleashed by Aurangzeb to sanctify his warlust led
to wars with the Hindu Rajputs, Marathas as well as Muslim kingdoms of Bijapur
and Hyderabad and the complete subjugation of the Lucknow Nawabs. This last of
the Great Mughals retracted most of the tolerant policies of his forbears. Under
his reign the empire reached its greatest extent in terms of territorial gain
and economic strength.[citation
needed]

Economy

The Mughals used the mansabdar
system to generate land revenue. The emperor would grant revenue rights to a mansabdar
in exchange for promises of soldiers in wartime. The greater the size of the
land the emperor granted, the greater the number of soldiers the mansabdar
had to promise. The mansab was both revocable and non-hereditary; this
gave the centre a fairly large degree of control over the mansabdars.

Establishment and reign of Babur

In the early 16th
century, Muslim armies consisting of Mongol, Turkic, Persian, and Afghan
warriors invaded India under the leadership of the Timurid prince
Zahir-ud-Din-Muhammad Babur. Babur was the great-grandson of Central
Asian conqueror Timur-e Lang (Timur the Lame, from which the Western name
Tamerlane is derived), who had invaded India in 1398
before retiring to Samarkand.
Timur himself claimed descent from the Mongol ruler, Genghis
Khan. Babur was driven from Samarkand by the Uzbeks and initially
established his rule in Kabul
in 1504. Later,
taking advantage of internal discontent in the Delhi
sultanate under Ibrahim
Lodi, and following an invitation from Daulat
Khan Lodhi (governor of Punjab) and Alam
Khan (uncle of the Sultan), Babur invaded India in 1526.

Babur, a seasoned military commander, entered India in 1526 with his
well-trained veteran army of 12,000 to meet the sultan's huge but unwieldy and
disunited force of more than 100,000 men. Babur defeated the Lodhi sultan
decisively at the First
Battle of Panipat. Employing firearms,
gun carts, movable artillery,
superior cavalry tactics, and the highly regarded Mughal composite bow, a weapon
even more powerful than the English longbow of the same period, Babur achieved a
resounding victory and the Sultan was killed. A year later (1527)
he decisively defeated, at the Battle
of Khanwa, a Rajput confederacy led by Rana
Sanga of Chittor. A third major battle was fought in 1529 at Gogra, where
Babur routed the joint forces of Afghans and the sultan of Bengal.
Babur died in 1530 in Agra before he could consolidate his military gains.
During his short five-year reign, Babur took considerable interest in erecting
buildings, though few have survived. He left behind as his chief legacy a set of
descendants who would fulfil his dream of establishing an Islamic empire in the
Indian subcontinent.

Successors

Babur's will to
Humayun

According to the document available in the State Library of Bhopal, Babur
left the following will to Humayun:[citation
needed]

"My son take note of the following: do not harbor religious prejudice
in your heart. You should dispense justice while taking note of the people's
religious sensitivities, and rites. Avoid slaughtering cows in order that you
could gain a place in the heart of natives. This will take you nearer to the
people.

"Do not demolish or damage places of worship of any faith and dispense
full justice to all, to ensure peace in the country. Islam can better be
preached by the sword of love and affection, rather than the sword of tyranny
and persecution. Avoid the differences between the Shias and Sunnis. Look at
the various characteristics of your people just as characteristics of various
seasons."

When Babur died, his son Humayun (1530–1556) inherited a difficult task. He
was pressed from all sides by a reassertion of Afghan claims to the Delhi throne
and by disputes over his own succession. Driven into Sindh
by the armies of Sher
Shah Suri, in 1540
he fled to the Rajput
Kingdom of Umarkot
then to Persia, where he spent nearly ten years as an embarrassed guest of the Safavid
court of Shah
Tahmasp. During Sher Shah's reign, an imperial unification and
administrative framework were established; this would be further developed by
Akbar later in the century. In addition, the tomb of Sher Shah Suri is an
architectural masterpiece that was to have a profound impact on the evolution of
Indo-Islamic funerary architecture. In 1545,
Humayun gained a foothold in Kabul with Safavid assistance and reasserted his
Indian claims, a task facilitated by the weakening of Afghan power in the area
after the death of Sher Shah Suri in May 1545. He took control of Delhi in 1555,
but died within six months of his return, from a fall down the steps of his
library.[citation
needed] His tomb at Delhi represents an outstanding
landmark in the development and refinement of the Mughal style. It was designed
in 1564, eight
years after his death, as a mark of devotion by his widow, Hamida
Banu Begum.

Akbar

Humayun's untimely death in 1556 left the task of conquest and imperial
consolidation to his thirteen-year-old son, Jalal-ud-Din
Akbar (r.1556–1605).
Following a decisive military victory at the Second
Battle of Panipat in 1556, the regent Bairam
Khan pursued a vigorous policy of expansion on Akbar's behalf. As soon as
Akbar came of age, he began to free himself from the influences of overbearing
ministers, court factions, and harem intrigues, and demonstrated his own
capacity for judgment and leadership. A workaholic who seldom slept more than
three hours a night, he personally oversaw the implementation of his
administrative policies, which were to form the backbone of the Mughal Empire
for more than 200 years. With the aide of his legendary Navaratnas,
he continued to conquer, annex, and consolidate a far-flung territory bounded by
Kabul in the
northwest, Kashmir
in the north, Bengal
in the east, and beyond the Narmada
River in central India.

Starting in 1571,
Akbar built a walled capital called Fatehpur
Sikri (Fatehpur means "town of victory") near Agra.
Palaces for each of Akbar's senior queens, a huge artificial lake, and
sumptuous water-filled courtyards were built there. However, the city
was soon abandoned and the capital was moved to Lahore
in 1585.
The reason may have been that the water supply in Fatehpur Sikri was
insufficient or of poor quality. Or, as some historians believe, Akbar
had to attend to the northwest areas of his empire and therefore moved
his capital northwest. In 1599,
Akbar shifted his capital back to Agra from where he reigned until his
death.

Akbar adopted two distinct but effective approaches in
administering a large territory and incorporating various ethnic groups
into the service of his realm. In 1580
he obtained local revenue statistics for the previous decade in order to
understand details of productivity and price fluctuation of different
crops. Aided by Todar
Mal, a Hindu scholar, Akbar issued a revenue schedule that optimized
the revenue needs of the state with the ability of the peasantry to pay.
Revenue demands, fixed according to local conventions of cultivation and
quality of soil, ranged from one-third to one-half of the crop and were
paid in cash. Akbar relied heavily on land-holding zamindars
to act as revenue-collectors. They used their considerable local
knowledge and influence to collect revenue and to transfer it to the
treasury, keeping a portion in return for services rendered. Within his
administrative system, the warrior aristocracy (mansabdars)
held ranks (mansabs) expressed in numbers of troops, and indicating pay,
armed contingents, and obligations. The warrior aristocracy was
generally paid from revenues of non-hereditary and transferable jagirs
(revenue villages).

An astute ruler who genuinely appreciated the challenges of administering so
vast an empire, Akbar introduced a policy of reconciliation and assimilation of
Hindus (including Jodhabai,
later renamed Mariam-uz-Zamani[citation
needed] Begum, the Hindu Rajput
mother of his son and heir, Jahangir), who represented the majority of the
population. He recruited and rewarded Hindu chiefs with the highest ranks in
government; encouraged intermarriages between Mughal and Rajput
aristocracy; allowed new temples to be built; personally participated in
celebrating Hindu festivals such as Deepavali
(or Diwali), the festival of lights; and abolished the jizya
(poll tax) imposed on non-Muslims. Akbar came up with his own theory of "rulership
as a divine illumination," enshrined in his new religion Din-i-Ilahi
(Divine Faith), incorporating the principle of acceptance of all religions and
sects. He encouraged widow re-marriage, discouraged child marriage, outlawed the
practice of sati[citation
needed] and persuaded Delhi merchants to set up special
market days for women, who otherwise were secluded at home.

By the end of Akbar's reign, the Mughal Empire extended throughout north
India and south of the Narmada
river. Notable exceptions were Gondwana
in central India, which paid tribute to the Mughals, Assam
in the northeast, and large parts of the Deccan.
The area south of the Godavari
river remained entirely out of the ambit of the Mughals. In 1600,
Akbar's empire had a revenue of £17.5 million. By comparison, in 1800,
the entire treasury of Great
Britain totalled £16 million.

Akbar's empire supported vibrant intellectual and cultural life. The large
imperial library included books in Hindi,
Persian,
Greek,
Kashmiri,
English,
and Arabic,
such as the Shahnameh,
Bhagavata
Purana and the Bible.
Akbar regularly sponsored debates and dialogues among religious and intellectual
figures with differing views, and he welcomed Jesuit
missionaries from Goa
to his court. Akbar directed the creation of the Hamzanama,
an artistic masterpiece that included 1400 large paintings. Architecture
flourished during his reign. One of his first major building projects was the
construction of a huge fort at Agra. The massive sandstone ramparts of the Red
Fort are another impressive achievement. The most ambitious architectural
exercise of Akbar, and one of the most glorious examples of Indo-Islamic
architecture, was the creation of an entirely new capital city at Fatehpur Sikri.

Jahangir

After the death of Akbar in
1605, his son, Prince Salim, ascended the throne and assumed the title
of Jahangir, "Seizer of the World". He was assisted in his
artistic attempts by his wife, Nur Jahan. The Mausoleum
of Akbar at Sikandra,
outside Agra, represents a major turning point in Mughal history, as the
sandstone compositions of Akbar were adapted by his successors into
opulent marble masterpieces. Jahangir is the central figure in the
development of the Mughal garden. The most famous of his gardens is the
Shalimar Bagh on the banks of Dal
Lake in Kashmir.

Mughal rule under Jahangir (1605–27)
and Shah
Jahan (1628–58)
was noted for political stability, brisk economic activity, beautiful paintings,
and monumental buildings. Jahangir's wife Nur
Jahan (Light of the World), emerged as the most powerful individual in the
court besides the emperor. As a result, Persian poets, artists, scholars, and
officers — including her own family members — lured by the Mughal court's
brilliance and luxury, found asylum in India. However, the number of
unproductive officers mushroomed in the state bureaucracies, as did corruption,
while the excessive Persian representation upset the delicate balance of
impartiality at the court.

The reign of Jahangir was also known for religious persecution. He severely
persecuted the Jains
and destroyed Hindu
temples.Guru
Arjun, the fifth Guru of Sikhs,
was tortured to death during his reign. Although his relations with the son of
Guru Arjun, Guru
Hargobind, remained cordial and friendly.It is contended that Guru Arjun and
the Jains suffered because Jahangir had developed a hatred for their religions.[5]

Nur Jahan's abortive efforts to secure the throne for the prince of her
choice (Khurram - later Shah Jahan) led the first-born, Prince Khusrau (Maharani
Maanbai's son) to rebel against Jahangir in 1622.
In that same year, the Persians took over Kandahar
in southern Afghanistan, an event that struck a serious blow to Mughal prestige.
Jahangir also had the Tuzak-i-Jahangiri composed as a record of his
reign.

Shah Jahan

The Taj
Mahal is the most famous monument built by the Mughals. It was built
by Prince Khurram who ascended the throne in 1628 as Emperor Shah Jahan.
Between 1636
and 1646,
Shah Jahan sent Mughal armies to conquer the Deccan and the lands to the
northwest of the empire, beyond the Khyber
Pass. Even though they aptly demonstrated Mughal military strength,
these campaigns drained the imperial treasury. As the state became a
huge military machine, causing the nobles and their contingents to
multiply almost fourfold, the demands for revenue from the peasantry
were greatly increased. Political unification and maintenance of law and
order over wide areas encouraged the emergence of large centers of
commerce and crafts — such as Lahore, Delhi, Agra, and Ahmadabad
— linked by roads and waterways to distant places and ports.

However, Shah Jahan's reign is remembered more for monumental architectural
achievements than anything else. The single most important architectural change
was the use of marble instead of sandstone. He demolished the austere sandstone
structures of Akbar in the Red Fort and replaced them with marble buildings such
as the Diwan-i-Am (hall of public audience), the Diwan-i-Khas (hall of private
audience), and the Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque). The tomb of Itmiad-ud-Daula, the
grandfather of his queen, Mumtaz
Mahal, was also constructed on the opposite bank of the Jamuna
or Yamuna. In 1638
he began to lay out the city of Shahjahanabad beside the Jamuna river further
North in Delhi. The Red Fort at Delhi represents the pinnacle of centuries of
experience in the construction of palace-forts. Outside the fort, he built the
Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India. However, it is for the Taj Mahal,
which he built as a memorial to his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, that he is most
often remembered.

Shah Jahan's extravagant architectural indulgence had a heavy price. The
peasants had been impoverished by heavy taxes and by the time his son Aurangzeb
ascended the throne, the empire was in a state of insolvency. As a result,
opportunities for grand architectural projects were severely limited. This is
most easily seen at the Bibi-ki-Maqbara, the tomb of Aurangzeb's wife, built in 1678.
Though the design was inspired by the Taj Mahal, it is half its size, the
proportions compressed and the detail clumsily executed.

The Taj Mahal thus symbolizes both Mughal artistic achievement and excessive
financial expenditures at a time when resources were shrinking. The economic
positions of peasants and artisans did not improve because the administration
failed to produce any lasting change in the existing social structure. There was
no incentive for the revenue officials, whose concerns were primarily personal
or familial gain, to generate resources independent of what was received from
the Hindu zamindars and village leaders, who, due to self-interest and local
dominance, did not hand over the entirety of the tax revenues to the imperial
treasury. In their ever-greater dependence on land revenue, the Mughals
unwittingly nurtured forces that eventually led to the break-up of their empire.

The Reign of Aurangzeb and the
decline of the empire

The last of the great Mughals was Aurangzeb
Alamgir. During his fifty-year reign, the empire reached its
greatest physical size (the Bijapur
and Golconda
Sultanates which had been reduced to vassaldom by Shah Jahan were
formally annexed), but also showed unmistakable signs of decline. The
bureaucracy had grown corrupt; the huge army used outdated weaponry and
tactics. Aurangzeb restored Mughal military dominance and expanded power
southward, at least for a while. Aurangzeb was involved in a series of
protracted wars against the sultans of Bijapur and Golkonda in the
Deccan, the Rajputs
of Rajasthan,
Malwa,
and Bundelkhand,
the Marathas
in Maharashtra
and the Ahoms
in Assam. Peasant uprisings and revolts by local leaders became all too
common, as did the conniving of the nobles to preserve their own status
at the expense of a steadily weakening empire. From the early 1700s
the campaigns of the Sikhs of Punjab under leaders such as Banda
Bahadur, inspired by the martial teachings of their last Guru, Guru
Gobind Singh, also posed a considerable threat to Mughal rule in
Northern India.

One of the thirteen gates at the Lahore
Fort, this one was actually built by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb and
named Alamgir

But most decisively the series of wars against the Pashtuns
in Afghanistan weakened the very foundation upon which Moghul military rested.
The Pashtuns formed the backbone of the Muhgal army and were some of the most
hardened troops. The antagonism showed towards the erstwhile Mughal General Khushal
Khan Khattak, for one, seriously undermined the Mughal miltary apparatus.

Aurangzeb made his religion an important part of his reign. However, that
brought about some resentment. For instance, the jiziya tax which
non-Muslims had to pay was re-introduced; Muslims had a different form of
taxation, the zakat. Non-Muslims were not required to pay the tax before
that. In this clime, contenders for the Mughal throne were many, and the reigns
of Aurangzeb's successors were short-lived and filled with strife. The Mughal
Empire experienced dramatic reverses as regional nawabs
or governors broke away and founded independent kingdoms such as the Marathas to
the southwest and the Sikhs in the northwest. In the war
of 27 years from 1681
to 1707, the
Mughals suffered several heavy defeats at the hands of the Marathas. In the
early 1700s the Sikhs became increasingly militant in an attempt to fight the
oppressive Mughal rule. They had to make peace with the Maratha armies. Nader
Shah defeated the Mughal army at the huge Battle
of Karnal in February, 1739.
After this victory, Nader captured and sacked Delhi, carrying away many
treasures, including the Peacock
Throne.[6]
In 1761, Delhi was raided by Ahmed
Shah Abdali after the Third
battle of Panipat.

The decline of the Mughal Empire has been ascribed to several reasons. Some
historians such as Irfan
Habib have described the decline of the Mughal Empire in terms of class
struggle.[7]
Habib proposed that excessive taxation and repression of peasants created a
discontented class that either rebelled itself or supported rebellions by other
classes and states. Athar Ali proposed a theory of a "jagirdari
crisis." According to this theory, the influx of a large number of new
Deccan nobles into the Mughal nobility during the reign of Aurangzeb created a
shortage of agricultural crown land meant to be allotted, and destroyed the
crown lands altogether.[8]
Other theories put weight on the devious role played by the Saeed
brothers in destabilizing the Mughal throne and auctioning the agricultural
crown lands for revenue extraction.

Ibrahim Lodhi (died April 21, 1526) was the
last ruler of the Delhi Sultanate. He was an Afghan (specifically of the Ghilzai
tribe of Pashtuns) who ruled over much of India from 1517-1526, when he was
defeated by the Mughals, who established a new dynasty that would last some
three centuries.

Ibrahim attained the throne upon the death of his father, Sikandar Lodhi, but
was not blessed with the same ruling capability. He faced a number of
rebellions. Rana Sanga extended his empire right up to western UP and threatened
to attack Agra. There was rebellion in the east also. He also displeased the
nobility when he replaced old and senior commanders by younger ones who were
loyal to him. He was feared and loathed by his subjects. His Afghan nobility
eventually invited Babur of Kabul to invade India.

Ibrahim died in the Battle of Panipat, where Babur's superior fighters and
the desertion of many of Lodhi's soldiers led to his downfall, despite superior
troop numbers.

The first battle of Panipat
took place in northern India, and marked the beginning of the Mughal Empire.
This was one of the earliest battles involving gunpowder firearms and field
artillery.

The battle was fought on April
21 near the small village of Panipat,
in the present day Indian state of Haryana,
an area that has been the site of a number decisive battles for the control of
Northern India since the twelfth century.

It is estimated that Babur's forces numbered about 15,000 men and he had
between 15 to 20 pieces of field
artillery, however Lodhi had around 100,000 men, though that number included
camp followers, while the fighting force was around 30,000 to 40,000 men in
total, along with at least 100 war
elephants. Babur's guns proved decisive in battle, firstly because Ibrahim
Lodhi lacked any field artillery but also because elephants are scared of guns.
Babur could use the guns to scare the elephents away, causing them to trample
Lodhi's own men. Babur was an inspirational leader of men and commanded a well
disciplined army.

Ibrahim Lodhi died on the field of battle, abandoned by his feudatories and
generals (many of whom were mercenaries),
most of whom would change their allegiance to the new master of Delhi.

The battle marked the foundation of the Mughal Empire in India. The word Mughal
means Mongol and alludes to the Turkic
and Mongol
origins of Babur and his officers, though the majority of his troops were of Pathan,
Indian and mixed Central
Asian descent.